


Rocks In My Pocket, Stones In My Heart

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Character of Faith, F/M, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Relationship(s), Spiritual, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 03:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15720798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: Candice can feel her husband disappearing. But there's something else bothering her too. She finds herself in the darkness talking to Aleister Black.





	Rocks In My Pocket, Stones In My Heart

 

 

 

Candice didn’t really know how she got there or why. She’d been walking round Full Sail, trying to work through some of her fury with Shayna and whatever else was stuck under her skin, making her feel such a buzzing sense of disjointed agitation. The pained ball of confused husband-related worry she felt pretty much permanently now was already more than enough to be taking home with her. Then, when she actually looked around for the first time in a while, she found her feet had taken her to one of the darker more disused parts of the building. It wasn’t like it was somewhere she’d ever sought out before – she pretty much stuck to the locker rooms and catering. But here she was and she was still so agitated...and she wasn’t alone.

 

Aleister was sat on a folding chair reading a book with a look of familiar concentration. Velveteen Dream was lounging next to him (there really wasn’t any other word for it) across several chairs, his head pillowed on Aleister’s knee. Despite everything she was carrying, the image made Candice smile, tension unpicking. It was a really good feeling, how long had it been since she’d just smiled like that?

 

Aleister glanced up then, though Candice was sure he’d been completely aware of her before he’d heard her footsteps, and raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t warning or even rueful. Aleister had always been one of the most self-possessed people Candice knew. So was Dream, though they were so different in temperament and personality, Candice wouldn’t have ever imagined they could look so comfortable and **content** together. But here they were and Aleister had his usual centered peace with it, of course.

 

Dream glanced at her through his round sunglasses. Candice didn’t know him but she felt rocks in her stomach at his gaze, making her tense again. Because she knew what he was like – arrogant to the extreme and using it to try to crush other people with the weight of how highly he thought of himself. He wasn’t Tommaso. But the feeling she got when he looked at her, it was too familiar.

 

“You lost, Mrs. Gargano?”

 

So was that. Candice pointedly didn’t look at the rings on her left hand. They’d make a good dent in Dream’s face if she hit him though.

 

“Candice. Should I write it down so you can remember it?”

 

Aleister wore a faint smile as he turned a page of his book. “Of all people, you don’t understand the importance of names?”

 

Dream pursed his lips and an eyebrow moved but he didn’t apologize. Of course not. Instead, he tucked a manicured hand beneath his head, still resting on Aleister’s leg, and acted like he wasn’t interested anymore.

 

“Candice,” he allowed, with a wave of his free hand, tone bored, gaze turned away.

 

Aleister’s gaze was still fastened on his book. The ink looked faded in places and some of the font matched one or two of his hand tattoos. But his expression wasn’t dismissive and Candice wasn’t leaving. She hadn’t really talked to him since he’d asked for her help with Zelina. Since then, Candice’s world had been consumed and defined by Tommaso. There was that pain and agitation again. Great.

 

“I don’t have answers for that,” Aleister told her before she said a word.

 

His gaze lifted to meet hers now. It was level and uncompromising and without a shred of pity. Candice knew she was frowning in response. She hadn’t come here looking for answers. She hadn’t been expecting Aleister to light candles and read a ritual and spill blood, suddenly making everything she faced daily totally uncomplicated and pain-free. That wasn’t even possible, was it?

 

Back before all of this, they’d sometimes vaguely talked about it, Aleister’s belief system, because it was so far away from what she’d always been preoccupied with outside of wrestling – Disney and cupcakes and the bright sunshine side of living. She was interested because it held Aleister’s interest so totally. It was a huge part of who he was; it was even painted on his skin.

 

It wasn’t like he used it to win matches though, so far as Candice could tell. And it never seemed like he cursed anyone or hexed them or whatever the right word was. He practiced it, like a religion, he surrounded himself with it, carried it with him everywhere, inside and out. He had to, what, draw strength from it? Find comfort? Guidance? It filled every breath he took and colored every inch of how he saw the world.

 

But it didn’t separate him from anything. He was here with Dream now and Candice had known him before, when he’d looked the same and used another name and had tag team partners. He’d never been an island.

 

Johnny was making himself one. Candice hadn’t ever seen him like this - furious and **wounded** at such a deep level, that nothing else touched it. Not work, not her, nothing. All that mattered was hurting Tommaso at the level Johnny had been hurt.

 

Candice looked into her husband’s eyes now and saw the same expression Tommaso wore. It was how Tommaso was going to win. Johnny thought he was chasing Tommaso but he was being lured. Candice’s husband was disappearing.

 

She looked at Aleister and nodded because he understood. He’d been angry, had rivalries that had gotten into his head. Maybe his faith helped. He and Dream had tried getting under each other’s skin; they’d ended up like this, comfortable together, bonded. Dream still wasn’t looking at her but she could see how his fingers were circling the bones of Aleister’s right wrist. They weren’t looking at each other but there was something about Aleister’s expression that said how aware of each other they were. The air practically simmered around them. Not like a fight was about to break out either.

 

 _How did you guys not end up hating each other?_ Candice wanted to ask, suddenly. _How did you just fight once and call it quits? How did fighting make things better for you both, together? How did you stop falling?_

 

She didn’t think Dream had any tattoos. Maybe they were covered by his ring gear. Maybe he had Aleister’s faith and ideas painted on his skin too.

 

How was it that Johnny and Tommaso who were so close with so much common ground couldn’t find that ground again and realize that what they’d had before was so much more important than Tommaso’s jealousy and the loss of the tag belts?

 

Both of them were going to completely disappear into this. And Candice... So much of what she thought about now was Johnny and Tommaso. She’d won matches against guys bigger than Tommaso. She’d bled more thanks to smaller cuts. But what Tommaso was doing, it felt bigger. Too big.

 

“No answers,” she said aloud.

 

There was a whisper of paper and fabric and Dream’s fingertips were sketching something across Aleister’s forearm now. Aleister had closed his book.

 

“Only the fight,” he replied.

 

Because neither Johnny nor Tommaso were ready to end it. But Aleister had been, after he and Dream had fought. He’d found peace because he’d won; Dream had been content with a loss because Aleister had said his name in front of the whole WWE Universe. All the Dream cared about was acknowledgement, recognition. That sounded familiar too.

 

Candice couldn’t see an end to this. Tommaso had refused to walk away and now Johnny was refusing too. Candice honestly couldn’t see what life was going to be like without Tommaso in it. He’d been Johnny’s best friend, now he was, what, his best enemy? They couldn’t be separated anymore.

 

Candice didn’t want that. She couldn’t...disappear. That was it, the agitation that had been bothering her so much. She couldn’t disappear.

 

It didn’t mean she didn’t care. She did, too much, because this was Johnny and they’d always swore they wouldn’t fight each other’s battles. He was more than capable of dealing with Tommaso, when he was thinking clearly. And if Candice fell down into that darkness too...yeah, this was why she couldn’t see the way ahead, for her or Johnny.

 

She could feel the Dream’s gaze on her now but his eyes stayed shaded and unknowable. His fingers reached to curl around Aleister’s shoulder.

 

So she’d focus on something else, back to Shayna again and everything she deserved. Candice could do that and fight for the title. That was what Aleister had done, wasn’t it. Maybe the separation had helped.

 

One of Aleister’s hands was now splayed across Dream’s collarbone, his tattoos looking like the most unexpected accessory, like nothing Dream ever wore himself. But they suited him too, weirdly, amongst the glitter and the shimmering bare skin. And it mirrored the way Dream was touching Aleister.

 

It should have made Candice smile again. She should felt stronger, ready now that she had something more like direction in front of her, something else to focus on. But the rocks were still there, hiding in her stomach. And one day, she knew, with sick certainty, they'd be boulders.

 

_-the end_

 


End file.
